Panamas first Zika related death

A BABY born with microcephaly,  a brain disorder believed linked to the zika virus,  was born in Panama on Thursday March 17,. The baby died after four hours,  and  traces of the mosquito-borne virus were found in the umbilical cord.

The  baby’s mother had not reported any symptoms of Zika during her pregnancy.

Microcephaly is a birth defect where the baby’s head is smaller than normal compared with babies of the same age and sex. Recently it has been associated to the Zika virus, after the global epidemic broke out in November.

By early March, Panama Health Minister, Francisco Javier Terrientes, had reported three pregnant women who had acquired the zika virus two in  Guna Yala and one in the province of Panama.

A Panama  zika  health alert was activated in December 2015, with  the first reports of the disease in Guna Yala.

From December to date 130 cases of the disease have been reported  in Guna Yala. Tocumen, Bella Vista, San Francisco, Bethany, Las Cumbres and in the districts of Arraijan, La Chorrera and Chame, i Panama Oeste, and Sabanitas, Colon,  province.

Brazil suspects most of its 860 cases of microcephaly are related to Zika…

The Panamanian baby’s mother had not reported any symptoms of Zika during her pregnancy.

The World Health Organization (WHO) has declared a global public health emergency over the possible connection between the mosquito-born virus and microcephaly.

The current outbreak began almost a year ago in Brazil.

Microcephaly cases have been centred in north-east Brazil, but the outbreak has affected people in more than 20 countries in the Americas.

Some governments have advised women to delay getting pregnant, but until now no infants with microcephaly have tested positive for Zika outside Brazil in the current outbreak.

Some cases of the brain condition were reported in an outbreak in French Polynesia in 2013.